A new study finds that nursing homes that have higher numbers of Black or African American residents, have much lower standards of quality and care, compared to nursing homes that have fewer numbers of black residents.

A new study finds that nursing homes that have higher numbers of Black or African American residents, have much lower standards of quality and care, compared to nursing homes that have fewer numbers of black residents.

The results of the study were published in Health Services Research recently, and found that nursing homes that have high proportions of black residents seem to deliver lower quality of care and perform poorly financially, compared to homes with fewer or no minority patients at all. In these long-term resident facilities, with no black residents or minimal black residents, profit margins are much higher, revenues are much more impressive, and the healthcare outcomes of residents seem to be much better, compared to homes where there are predominantly black residents.

The research included more than 11,000 American nursing homes. Homes with predominantly Black or African American residents typically rely more on Medicaid compared to others. That means the reimbursement rates in these nursing homes are much lower, compared to other nursing homes that are on the private pay or self- pay model.

The kind of quality data parameters that the researchers looked into while analyzing and comparing nursing homes included the ratio of nursing staff to patients, the kind of help that staff members provided patients in walking and getting out of bed, pressure ulcer prevention success, rate of success in the prevention of urinary tract infections, medication error rates, citations by government agencies and a number of other factors.

California nursing home abuse lawyers find from this research that nursing homes with predominantly black patients had lower operating costs, lower revenues, and very tight operating margins. Deficiency citations in these homes were more common, while pressure ulcer prevention success was minimal.

When a nursing home is run for profit, conditions for residents of the facility seem to be much more injurious and risky, than when the nursing home is not run on a profit basis.

When a nursing home is run for profit, conditions for residents of the facility seem to be much more injurious and risky, than when the nursing home is not run on a profit basis. Those findings come from an investigation conducted by Bloomberg News, which investigated government data and court filings.

The analysis found a number of horrific incidents at I nursing homes that are being run on a profit basis. In one case, a 92-year-old patient who suffered from lung cancer was forced to undergo physical therapy, even though she was so sick that she was coughing up blood. In another case, an 80-year-old woman at a for-profit nursing home, who was not even able to hold her own head up, was forced to stand in a standing frame for more than an hour. A standing frame is used to help a person too weak to stand up, in order to avoid bedsores, and joint pain from lying down for too long.

There are other even more horrific incidents at for-profit nursing homes included in the Bloomberg analysis. Abuse, neglect and outright negligence are at the core of many of these incidents.

The Bloomberg News analysis finds that the profit motive seems to have a detrimental effect on the quality of care being provided at nursing homes. According to Bloomberg, approximately 30% of claims from for-profit homes were found to be improper, while in nursing homes that were not run on the profit motive, the rate was just about 12%.

What nursing home abuse lawyers find really frightening is the fact that approximately 70% of all nursing homes in 2010 were reported to be operated on a for-profit basis.

Whenever a nursing home is run on a profit motive, the bottom line is profits, and very often, those profits come by sacrificing quality care. For instance, nursing homes may hire fewer staff members than are necessary, in order to cut down on salaries and overheads. However, patients may be at risk in such facilities.